Readers devour Hopkins regardless, but this is strong and worthy.
Almost six months after his younger brother’s suicide, a high school senior slogs through tangled resentment and guilt.
Matt’s world has never been rich with happiness, what with his cold parents who retreat “to their separate alcohol-soaked / corners.” Dad bitterly rues the one-night stand that created Matt and forced the marriage; their house “is a sponge, / absorbing regret until it can hold / no more and disillusionment drips // through the bloated pores.” Now Matt shoulders his own crushing regret. Luke was three years younger—Matt should have protected him from the homophobic and religious bullies; he should have told adults how depressed Luke was, even sneaking Mom’s Prozac, which can be dangerous for teens. He definitely shouldn’t have been distracted by his girlfriend on Luke’s last, desperate day. Now that very girlfriend seems to be “trading [Matt] in // for Jesus.” The sturdy, fast-reading free-verse poems—which sometimes shift into elegance—give a heavy sense of Matt’s anger and discomfort, as well as how he vacillates between decency and churlishness. Themes of combat-induced PTSD, Christian fundamentalist bigotry, forgiveness, and foreshadowed violence integrate deftly. The climax surprises in the best way. Brief but explicit acknowledgement of the It Gets Better campaign (and why it didn’t help Luke) grounds the contemporary setting.
Readers devour Hopkins regardless, but this is strong and worthy. (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8284-5
Page Count: 560
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Roll to the beat of summer love and loss in this heartfelt debut.
Jaelyn is a 16-year-old skater whose life changes dramatically in one brief summer.
Jae is dealing with shifts in several of her relationships: There’s strain and distance between her and her best friend, Noelle, difficulties with learning to trust her dad after he’s repeatedly disappointed her, and the blooming of romance with the cute new boy, Trey. Other life changes unfold in the landscape around Jae as her Indianapolis community becomes another target for developers who come in and try to “push us out, / price everything just / outside / of our reach, / our possibility.” When she learns that her local rink, WestSide Roll, will close to make way for a brewery, Jae is overwhelmed by the grief of losing the space that allows her the most freedom to be herself, a bold Black girl. She decides to see what she can do to recapture that spirit for herself and others. Using verse, Vinson provides concise, lyrical insights into the trials of painful transitions for multiple generations held together by disappearing community havens. The book’s flow and plot are smooth and easy to follow. However, Jae’s interpersonal conflicts are unevenly developed, leaving readers unmoored thanks to some rushed resolutions.
Roll to the beat of summer love and loss in this heartfelt debut. (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593858592
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
Poignant and real, beautiful and intense, this story of a girl struggling to define herself is as powerful as Xiomara’s...
Poetry helps first-generation Dominican-American teen Xiomara Batista come into her own.
Fifteen-year old Xiomara (“See-oh-MAH-ruh,” as she constantly instructs teachers on the first day of school) is used to standing out: she’s tall with “a little too much body for a young girl.” Street harassed by both boys and grown men and just plain harassed by girls, she copes with her fists. In this novel in verse, Acevedo examines the toxicity of the “strong black woman” trope, highlighting the ways Xiomara’s seeming unbreakability doesn’t allow space for her humanity. The only place Xiomara feels like herself and heard is in her poetry—and later with her love interest, Aman (a Trinidadian immigrant who, refreshingly, is a couple inches shorter than her). At church and at home, she’s stifled by her intensely Catholic mother’s rules and fear of sexuality. Her present-but-absent father and even her brother, Twin (yes, her actual twin), are both emotionally unavailable. Though she finds support in a dedicated teacher, in Aman, and in a poetry club and spoken-word competition, it’s Xiomara herself who finally gathers the resources she needs to solve her problems. The happy ending is not a neat one, making it both realistic and satisfying. Themes as diverse as growing up first-generation American, Latinx culture, sizeism, music, burgeoning sexuality, and the power of the written and spoken word are all explored with nuance.
Poignant and real, beautiful and intense, this story of a girl struggling to define herself is as powerful as Xiomara’s name: “one who is ready for war.” (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266280-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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